Beer: Ratings & Reviews

Costcutter, London (£1.29 for 275ml):Light straw with touch of gold. There is a thin, half centimetre tall and bubbly head that is bone white in colour.

Corn with cheap lager malts and a strongish alcohol aroma to begin with. There is a few hints of grassy hops and a touch of lemon but there is also a very skunky smell.

A sweet taste but laced with a lot more alcohol than the label suggests. There is some grain and faint lager hops with a biterr kick at the end. Slightly better than the smell but not by much.

Dry with moderate carbonation and a very bitter, alcohol laced feel. There is a citrus tang on top of a very light, thin body.

Very poor cheap. A hard beer to drink with the smell coming across even worse. The only thing it had going in its favour was the touches of grassy hops and lemon but these were overpowered by the skunky taste and smell far too easily. After trying this one I can now understand why most people stopped drinking it years ago.

Got this beer because I need something cheap to cook mussels with tonight... no offence to this beer but the packaging and marketing of this beer never has appealed to me. But here it goes, I'm sipping the first small glass of this beer by courtesy of a pot of mussels?! The beer label says it's brewed and canned in the EU for Carlsberg UK...can it be contract-brewed? BB JUN 2006.

A: incredibaly pale straw hue, fierce carbonation with huge bubbles ascending non-stoppingly, and the head is negligible, disappearing in twenty seconds. Looking really not very nice.
S: very soft and thin grainy and semi corn-ish malts on a slightly grassy hop base and a touch of limey note. Too timid the nose is, without supposed presence of hops, but not too unpleasant.
T: thin-bodied and flavourless malts along with some sugary taste and a semi-dry but flavourless hint of hops; slightly grainy overtone in the end, and no aftertaste of anything is left apart from a light chemical touch lingering.
M&D: the fizz is almost all gone by the time I take the first sip, and it's pretty flat on the mouthfeel. Stale, thin-bodied, watery and bland the lager is. Although it doesn't taste "funny" or horrible, it's next to the worst that could happen to any beer. Not totally unexpectable from a canned, mass-produced beer, though. It's not Pils, and certainly not a quality lager.

Sampled both can and bottle, enjoyed far more from a cold can. Aroma off-putting, skunked in bottle. A lot of corn taste, very on par with macro - or even more so domestic value brands. Offers little flavour or satisfaction, there are far better German pilsners out there. While this particular brewery isn't offensive, they aren't much of anything else either. I wouldn't care to revisit.

Holsten Pils is among one of the few off-license standards I haven't yet tried, so it was only a matter of time before this one found its way into my fridge and into my gullet. It is perfectly average to look at, golden yellow, clear, capped with a nylon sheath of white foam. The smell is dispiritingly weak and slipshod, mostly corn and tin, and the flavor is sour and astringent. It is fizzy and drinkable and all, and I guess that's all it needs to be, but even so it is off-putting enough to put it on the list of beers I needn't return to.

Poured into a Sam Smith's pint glass. A clear pale straw colour with good carbonation. Forms a decent head of frothy white foam that doesn't last long before subsiding. Smells of very little; subtle hints of light grain and perhaps corn or stewed veg, with a faint metallic note. Weak.

Tastes of light malt with a mild, dry bitterness. Faint notes of grain and stewed leaves. There is a metallic hint that isn't particularly nice, and a harsh bitter flavour on the finish. Mouthfeel is tingly and dry (for a lager), but watery. A harsh bitter note in the aftertaste.

Not all that nice. Weak flavour, and the notes that stand out are the unpleasant ones. Doesn't compare favourably with other industrial lagers (which isn't saying much in any case). Avoid.

I tried this on-tap at a bar in Darmstadt, Germany. I was not impressed.

I had a nice .5L tall glass. The beer looked rather impressive, a nice golden-tone. The head was near-white with large bubbles, quickly dissipating. The head had a bitter taste, warning me of what was to come. There was a nice taste of strong malt.

The beer was a big disappointment. Large and small bubbles of over-carbonation continued to rise, throughout. The beer, as with the head, had a strong malt taste and also the same bitterness. Other than that, I could not discover any redeeming tastes or characteristics, despite carefully sipping the entire glass. Finally, at the bottom, the last two sips showed some hints of apple and other subtle tastes-- almost as though any good features of the beer had separated to the bottom. Strange.

The beer left a not-overly-pleasant aftertaste, including the bitter effect. I spent a lot of time belching, as I consumed this. I'm sure that American-consumer-beer fans might really like this one.

After trying dozens of beers (pils, kolsch, weiss and others) here in Germany over the past 2 months, this quickly moved to the bottom of my list, as far as drinkability and enjoyment.

comes in a yellow and green can with classy writing all over it. Pours a pale golden color with a very shortlived head. The smell is dominated by sweet malts, like gram crackers with a little bit of noble hops as well. The taste is sweetish and not dry enough for a pilsner. It has a strange gram cracker like feel with DMS veggies and some bitter astringency. The hops are too weak. The finish of this beer is sweetish with a bit of bitterness. OK, but nothing more than average as far as pilsners go.

nice light, clear amber color. Lot's of foamy head that disappears quickly to a fairly robust white cap. Small webs of lacing down the sides of my pilsner glass.

Bready malts and some fairly rich Saaz hop. Decent!

Damn you Holsten! You've let me down again! No real balance here @ all. Quite watery @ first, followed by a veggie-like funk. Sweet malt and slightly spicy hop follow. A real metallic twang puts a real damper on the whole experience. It actually clings to the back of my throat as a reminder not to buy another 4 pack.

Not even close to Radeburger IMO...the only thing this has going for it is the reasonable price.

Pours a golden colour with a white head that dissipates quickly. Smell is akin to Warsteiner, with a little less hops, but that same sweet malt. Taste, hmm... Hops, some weird burnt taste, which is odd for this style, which unfortunately ruins the crispness I am expecting, bit more hops in the finish though. Definitely not as smooth as the beer I just had, and sadly less drinkable... I want another Warsteiner.

Beer is a deep yellow with a good head when from the tap. The smell had a hop aroma and a bit skunky. The taste came across as bitter and had a slightly bitter aftertaste. A decent beer for 1-2 drinks at the most.

Another typical North german brew, leaning towards being a bit bitter.